Time-Lapse of Water Tower Construction

Video of our new water tower being erected. Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique where each...

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Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique where each video or film frame is taken at a rate of time much much slower than the rate at which it will be viewed. When the footage is replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster or "lapsing." Time-lapse photography can be considered the opposite of high speed photography. High speed photography captures footage at an extreme pace and when played at the normal pace appears to move very slowly.

The video above was recorded over a period of about 6 hours. After the camera was fixed in place, half of a second of footage was captured for every 30 seconds of real time. If you do the math you end up with 1 second of footage for every minute of the day, thus 1 minute of footage for every hour! The technique is quite easy to do, you just need a camera that can do it automatically, or patience and a free schedule. The more difficult part is creating the illusion of tilting, panning, or zooming the camera to different angles. That process is more like Stop Motion Animation, where you move the object or, in this case, the camera in small increments before the camera captures the footage.

If you have any questions about this time-lapse video or the technique involved in creating it, feel free to send Andrew in the Communications Department an email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or just This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.